Sorry to do it, noob

Hi everyone; great site. Noob to this forum and the xj650, but not to wrenchin and forums. Just picked up an '81 to get my feet wet and get through the nh winter. Guy said it ran and I saw video of it doing so; its a fiwer uper. I just can not get any spark out of this lil monster, and I thought my '88 bronco was a pita to work on, with all the damn sensors on top of sensors.
I really hate to have to do it but im plumb out of ideas. Now, I put in the time, did days of searching the site, jotting down my plan of attack, and unsuccessfuly doing so. I tested all of my relays and switches and they appear to be fine (well, actually the clutch senor is missing. I assume at least; there is a solid black wire and black with yellow strips hanging there. The two wires were just wound together, but it made no differecnce wether connected or not, as I tried everything I could think of).
I did many tests, including the test in which I flash 12v to the connecter coming out the TCI to the coils. When the kill switch is off I get clicks from the relays under the tank. When I turn to run I get nothing. Now I tried all sorts of varriations of this method; tested both sides numberously, with one relay disconnected and then the other, tried disconnecting main relay under TCI and nothing, tried flashing 12v at the coils from their snap connections 5in from coil. I looked inside TCI and smelled/seen no issues. I really not sure here, but I think my coils are blown. Seems strange to me that both would go at the same time, but hey. Sucks too cuz this kid is building on a seriously tight budget. Could somebody please help get me pointed in right direction. Thanx people.

 

Start by simply disconnecting the "safety relay" to eliminate the whole silly clutch switch, sidestand switch, neutral switch system. Then if the bike starts you'll need to track down whatever has died; quite often the sidestand switch.

Also might want to check the "IGN" fuse in the fusebox.

 

Yup did that, as well as trace all the wires and perform every test I could find on the site having to do with no spark and stuff. I tested the ohms on the coils today and got 2.3 on both. To my understanding they are dead , right. Geez man, I got some common sense and some wrenching skill; fuses are fine. All wiring checks out.

 

If you are testing the low tension wires 2.5 ohms is spec, 2.3 might be the meter, high tension should be 11k ohms.

 

Sorry for the ignorance here, my only experience with such coils is on my rx7 and they are fool proof. So high tension is one of the coils and it should be 11 ohms, while the other coil is low tension and should be 2.5? Now, I test these by holding my meter pos/neg to primaries of coil, say r/w wire and grey wire right? Again, real sorry. If so, still stange 1) that both coils read same thing, and 2) I got no spark from either.

Ok, so I was way off up there; thought i'd leave it for entertainment purposes. Anyway, there are two different ways of testing the coils, high and low tension. You test for low the way I did, with pos/neg of meter to r/w and grey wires. How do you test high high tension? I assume using the boot end, but no clue about other end. Do I just gound it on it? I know I should get a manual but money is tight and figure could find most of what I need with a little work. Thanx for any help.

 

To test HT you put one probe in each plug cap, one coil at the time, if you are running resister caps remove them first.

 

Thechuck, the high tension (the spark plug wires) should read 11,000 ohms from the open leads (spark plug caps off, they unscrew from the wire), one to another (in other words, across the secondary side).
You should not consider a reading of 2.3 bad on the primary side, you have a fair amount of leeway on these readings.
How are you checking for spark? This may come across as silly but are you grounding the plugs to the engine when performing this test? If not, you have found your issue. More than one noob has done this so I have to ask.
You should also consider your ignition pickups and TCI as suspects. Ohm out the pickups and ensure the TCI has a good ground. You can open up your TCI and do a visual inspection of the solder runs. Cracks and corrosion are not uncommon in the TCI.
Good luck!

 

Wow, I'm so stoked to be able to get such great help; all of which have been helpful as well as entertaining.
Yes I have been grounding to engine, as stated, I am noob to xj, and as it may be, coils, but have done my fair share wrenching (dirtbikes, nitro rc, mazda rx7 rotary). I have checked my coils, properly, removing boots and getting the desired 11k. Awesome, saves money but back to the checklist. Now, in the process of removing the boots I decided the hell with it and checked the boot's resistance. They are all messed up. 2 of them are around the 5ohms I suppose they should be judging from something I read about being a resister something in the cap. 2 of the caps are all over the place, and I believe they were on seperate coils. This could be my problem right?
Also, where are the pickups? I can find how to work on them but not where they are located. Damn I need a manual.
Last question for right now. On the wires that go into the coils; one pair is r/w and orange, while other pair is r/w and grey; when bike is turned to run, power is detected on the r/w wires, both coils. The gr.ey and orange wires are grounds.
Thanks so much for any and all help.

 

TCI questions are really common, so I just wrote this

http://www.xjbikes.com/Forums/viewtopic ... tml#185964

hopefully it's helpful (by the way, it covers a lot of the questions you just posed).

Cheers,
Paul

 

Pick up coils are insid the left side crank cover, 4 screws.

 

Thanx for new info. SQLGuy awesome write up, very helpful. I will get right at checking the pickups tomorrow. I was wondering if anyone might be able to answer my question concerning the lack of spark being due to faulty sparkplug boots. Especially since one from each coil is bad; if I'm reading correctly this means would get no spark at all from any plugs due to the coils being wired in 'series.' Damn, I coverd up my question with ramble again.
Could the lack of spark be due to faulty sparkplug boots?

 

If you have one plug sparking change that boot with the plug that isn't sparking.

 

Yes. But generally this would be because they're open, and that would generally cause the paired plug not to fire, or at least not to fire reliably. If the problem you have is that some boots are resistors boots and some are non-resistor boots, that wouldn't stop them firing, but it might cause other running problems.

One of the stock boots on my bike, when I got it, had a damaged connector that seemed to cause lack of spark for it's pair. I replaced all four with NGK caps, and they've been good.

 

Awesome, thanks so much for the new info., I cant wait to get back to work on this thing- damn sleep, why do we need sleep anyway? I don't need an answer to that one- lol.

 

Hey people; got another question. For the life of me I can not find how to ohms on the pickups. Sorry because this is probably not the brightest question, but perhaps you've come to expect it from me. How do you check ohms of pickups; where do you place black and red probes of meter? Thanx again

 

Pull the 4 pin plug from the TCI, test blue to orange then the other blue to grey, should have 700 ohms + or - 20%

 

Blue? There is only one blue wire on the entire bike as far as I can tell; it is dark blue linked by stake-on connection to light blue and comes out of wiring harness near tci, but not linked to it. My 4 plug connector from tci has orange, grey, r/w and black. The 6 plug connector to tci has 4 wires in it, orange, grey, black, black/white. Am I looking at something wrong here?

 

Pull that 4 pin plug & do a continuity test to see which pairs of wire are from which pick up coil, colors may differ but the test is the same.

 

It's Black, not Blue. So, Black to Orange, and Black to Grey. Should be about 650 Ohms IIRC, but the functional test as I outlined, is a better test.

 

Ok, took me a second there; I had to go back and read that write-up. I can not perform the functional test yet as I do not presently have a spark and therefore no baseline to test from. Now I was not going to let the color thing hold me up and figured 'blue' was 'black.' I will try the ohms check of the pickups using the orange and black, and grey and black. Black being the same wire though).
For the sake of understanding this TCI thing: The 4 plug connector, the one on top, has r/w wire which is constant power, black which is ground, and then, and this is where I'm confused, the orange and grey wire go to coils or pickups? I ask because there are also orange and grey and black wires in the bottom connector which is a 6 plug, but only 4 are being used.

 

Sorry, you're right; I missed that when replying about the blue versus black thing. The four pin connector connects to the spark coils. The six pin connects to the pickup coils.

(This is covered in my writeup, though ;-) )

 

Thanx again. Yeah just taking in so much info from different spots; I'm just trying to make sense of all of it. Believe me, I absolutely love the info I am getting from you guys, and SQLGuy, I have read your write up many times and seems it makes more and more sense to me as this project goes on.
Oh yeah, I ohmed out the pickups side of tci and got 635 on both orange and grey, so it looks like pickups are good. The hunt for spark continues.

 

Chuck, steps 1 through 4 of the troubleshooting section in the writeup deal specifically with no spark situations. What did you find from those steps?

 

Sorry, I been away for a little. SQLGuy thanks so much for sticking with me. Anyway, as far as steps 1-4 goes I do not have spark on any. But I have foung that my spark plug boots are pretty messed up, with two of the four, yes 1 from each coil, show no circut completed when ohmed out. I beleive this could have been the problem, right?
I have performed the tests in steps 1-4 at varrious times within this process of mine (ours), and all have checked out, though I will perform them first thing tomorrow. I took a little break there and was hot on the trail of the coil and sparkplug boot thing.
I do have another question if someone would be so kind. The person that had the bike, and it running, had the clutch safety switch wires spun together, obviously the switch is busted. Is the clutch supposed to be bepressed when starting? I acquired working switch but still, is clutch supposed to be pulled in thus the switch works by breaking the circut, or is wires spun together ok?
Sorry about how confusing that is; try it on my end. I guess what I'm asking is, having the wires connected, thus completing (or is the correct word 'grounding') the circut, is bad and would keep the bike from starting?

 

If the bike is in neutral, and the neutral light is lighting to show this (which shows you that the switch is working correctly), then then position of the clutch (or condition of the clutch switch) shouldn't matter.

However, it's step 3 in the troubleshooting procedure that the tell here. You just said that you have no spark, but you didn't say what you found in step 3 (whether the B/W wire is grounded or not). This is the wire that's controlled by the state of the Neutral, Clutch, and Side-stand switches.

On the other hand, if you have one open boot on each coil, you'd be likely to see no spark. Why not swap boots so that both of the good ones are on one coil and see whether there's spark on that pair of plugs at that point?

 

Sweet, thats exactly my plan of attack in next day or so, that and rechecking those steps.
Now this one may be longshot. Some master of wiring, yeah, obviously thats sarcasm, wired up their own...something. Very simply, well from what I can tell (and reason I'm asking question), they created their own ground and power. They did this in no direct route and now light is even powered by said master's handywork. I beleive I can easily decipher which wires go where judging from fact yamaha religiously sticks to their wire colors, and through the use of my other wiring harness. My question is involves a blue, black and white/green which comes from left instrument panel (damn it, I forget which it is, speedo maybe), and the blue and black wire from right instrument. Anyone know what the white/green is? I asume its a remote power or something. Presently the white/green and blue and a jumper are spun together, with the jumper going to a red/white (power) wire. I tell you, this is some quality work; LOL.
Thanks again and happy turkey day

 

Nevermind about the B/W in step 3. I'd forgotten that you have an '81 650, to which this safety circuit does not apply. Please update your bike info in you sig, though.

The White/Green is the pulse signal from the speedo to tell the turn signal auto-cancel unit when 150 meters have been driven.

Blue is power to the gauge's backlight.

Tieing White/Green to power would be pretty stupid. It would short out to ground every time the reed switch in the speedo closed. I imagine that this would pretty much immediately burn up the reed switch, as it's probably finer than a 10A fuse.

 

Still with me huh, thanks and please keep it up; I will figure this out. Yeah, like I said, this person was a master wirer. Now that I know what they are that will make very easy to fix. What should I wire the white/green to? I have another harness and know that the blue, black and white/green are on one connector, but do not know what they connect to. Well, actually I know that the blue is going to blue, black to black, but as far as I can tell there is no white/green that was cut.
And I will get on the sig thing now. Again thanx and happy turkey day.
Oh, almost forgot. What/where is the reed switch?

 

The White/Green ran to the turn signal auto-cancel module, which I'd bet is no-longer part of your bike. It is (or was), I believe, mounted on the frame near the back end of the fuel tank. It looks like a large relay and has a six-pin plug with five wires running into it.

The reed switch is a small switch inside the speedometer housing that gets closed by a magnet for each revolution of one of the wheels in the speedo's gear train. Again, I'd expect the reed switch in your speedometer to be toast after having been jumpered to 12V.

 

Got the bike all rewired. Headlight doesn't work till bike is running, correct? Right now I'm in the process of getting some of those ngk 5k ohm spark plug caps. Also, I performed the test at the tci and found volts to be around 10.5 sitting and around 8.5 cranking. I imagine this would be the battery, though it tests out at around 12v. I gonna give the battery a quick refresh, get those caps and test for some spark, maybe even try startn 'er up.

 

OH YEAH GOT HER RUNNING. I want to thank those of you that helped me, especially SQLGuy! Thanx a lot SQLGuy. I put on new ngk caps, and found that I got spark but then would'nt get spark. I got a tci from that parts bike I acquired so I put it on to see what happened. SPARK! So I decided to try the real deal. It started right up with no issues idling or reving or under power. I guess tci from bike good, though I swear the parts bike was a 550. Oh well, works for me. However I would like to maybe fix original, or maybe someone on here refreshes them or something.

 

Send a PM to Robert.

I hear he's the Best in the Business.
(Provided the one that went bad isnt a sealed unit)

 

Hey Chuck,

Great to hear she's running!

+1 on the recommendation to check with Robert about the TCI repair.

Cheers,
Paul

 

If the TCI unit you used was indeed for a 550, you'll want to get it swapped with the correct one for your bike as soon as you can.

Compare the "TID" and model numbers on the labels on the units.

The timing curves are different; yes it will run but it won't run as well as it will with the correct ignition "map."

 

Thanks everyone. Yeah, I did check the #s and they were not identical; the first # was same but others not. I will get the exact #s when I get to work on it later. It feels/sounds pretty good, though I have not heard or riden one, there are none of the normal signs that engine is running lean. Will running the bike with the 'wrong' one hurt the bike? Granted one is not beating on it or running hard for while?
I also had a question refering to shaft oil change; I searched the site for it pretty hard but no luck (actualy, there is relatively little information regarding oil). Again, I know I need manual.... What weight oil should I use and how much?
Thanks again and I will get right on contacting Robert, as regardless of above comments/questions, I want bike in proper running condition and another tci would be nice too.

 

Once again, please add your bike info to your sig so we don't have to dig back thru 3 pages of posts to find it.

"Shaft" oil change (I assume you mean final drive "pumpkin") takes .20L (.21 US Qt) GL-4 Hypoid gear oil, either 80W or 80W/90. (per factory book.)

The 550 is a peaky, chain-driven 6-speed. I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say the TCI IS going to provide a pretty different timing curve; what it will do to performance and whether it could cause any damage I can't say. I doubt it will hurt anything short term, I'm equally confident it wouldn't be a good idea, long term.

 

Hey I'm real sorry about not having my info in my sig, but I have no idea where to go to do such things. Not to mention I have no clue what one would do to view someones said info. Anyone please help and I will put that turd in there.

 

When you reply check the "Attach signature" box. To make a signature go back to your profile and put in the year, make and modle.

 

Ok, I think I got that sig thing taken care of, I hope.

 

Sort of... 1981 Seca what (650, 750, ?)

 

'81 650 Seca would be a bit difficult,

But he COULD have a 550 or a 750...

I'm betting it's a 750 since he said his "fixed it" TCI came from a 550 and they didn't match...

 

Ooops, I'll try and fix that. Why would that be difficult? To my knowledge it is an '81 Seca 650. So says vin and side cover. Yeah, and that tci I put in, from as far as I can tell a seca 550, runs the bike real strong, from idle to about 6k (Have not brought higher than that due to worries of hurting bike with wrong tci, though no lean spots).
Oh, and I am sorry to do this, but I have not been able to figure out how to pm Robert; I know that I saved a topic and bunch of replys by him in my quest to figure out my previous no spark issues, but can not for the life of me find that shit; though even if I found it I still have no clue how to send pm. Sorry to be vogar, but feeling frustrated and stupid.
Thanx for all the help!!!!!!!

 

You rang??? You simply click the PM button at the bottom of your post box. Write your message and click send. It's that easy. You will see it sitting in your sent box until the recipient (hopefully that's me) opens your message.

 

Chuck; The Seca 650 was a 1982 model-year ONLY bike here in the States, hence my comment. You probably have an '82, made in '81; just like my '81 Seca 550 was made in 12/80.

The 550s are chain driven so they're easy to tell apart from the others.

 

Thats funny. Oh snap! I did'nt see and odviously did'nt think to look there. Robert I'll be getting you that pm soon here, thanks for info on how to send it to you. Bigfitz, I figured it was something like that; I think yamaha likes doing it like that, I've heard several stories about that sort of thing, now that I think of it. Yeah, thats how I figured it was a 550. Ok, so my question of the day is (oh, and lets remember that I will be seeking to fix original): Has anyone run their bike with a tci that is not of their model bike for any amount of time? What were the results? I do not doubt the info I have recieved about timing being wrong and such, but I have been around my fair share of motor tuning, fuel/air ratio maps and such, and I would say that my bike feels quite strong and is operating on a relatively close tune.

 

I can tell you this: The differences are the timing "curve" and the RPM at which it reaches max advance and POSSIBLY even the amount of total advance because the engines are so different. It's not some super-complex computerized "map" just a simple "curve" but it IS different between those motors.

I wouldn't ride it hard on the 550 unit, that's for sure.

Troll eBay, TCI units go from $1.99 to $199.00 and everything in between. I think I paid about $5 for my spare 550 TCI.

BTW, my '83 Seca 550 was made in MAY of '82. Talk about "lead time" (I don't think they actually built many bikes at all in 1983.)